Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [32]
So was Mark Hanna, when the appointment was announced on 7 October. He heard the news at home in Ohio, and demanded to know why Roosevelt had acted without consulting him. The President replied frankly: “Because my experience has taught me that in such a case a quick decision really prevents bitterness.”
Hanna wrote back in the tones of a patient, but miffed, mentor. Roosevelt must “go slow” until he got back to town. There were bound to be many applicants for federal favor in the weeks ahead. “Reserve your decision—unless in cases which may require immediate attention. Then if my advice is of importance, Cortelyou can reach me over the ‘long distance.’ ”
Despite Hanna’s concern, praise for the appointment of Judge Jones was both loud and bipartisan. The Atlanta Constitution proclaimed itself “electrified … with hope of a new day.” Three wealthy young white Republicans in Montgomery, Alabama, announced that they were forming a “Roosevelt Club,” to “revolutionize and revitalize” GOP politics. Review of Reviews declared that Roosevelt had “immensely strengthened the real and permanent interests” of his party.
Encouraged, the President began to indulge some official vanities. He ordered three glossy carriages and five new horses, and commissioned a patriotic new livery, consisting of blue coat, white doeskin trousers, high boots, and top hat with tricolor cockade. He scrapped the old “Executive Mansion” letterhead, with its Gothic curlicues, and replaced it with stationery proclaiming THE WHITE HOUSE in plain sans serif. He made free use of his power of summons. John Hay, hobbling over daily from the State Department, complained that one interview a month had been enough for McKinley.
Roosevelt in any case did not seem to need much help with foreign policy. He was already formulating it. His first diplomatic document was a three-thousand-word set of instructions for delegates to the International Conference of American States.
Behind the show, and the energy, Hay detected incipient signs of noblesse oblige. “Stay away if you want to be amused,” he wrote Henry Adams in Europe.
Teddy said the other day, “I am not going to be the slave of tradition that forbids Presidents from seeing friends. I am going to dine with you and Henry Adams and Cabot whenever I like.” But (here the shadow of the crown sobered him a little), “of course I must preserve the prerogative of the initiative.”
Most observers felt that Roosevelt had exercised the prerogative wisely during his first month in office. He had consoled and inspired a stricken country, steadied the stock market, established decent standards of patronage, and tempered the mutual hatreds of race and party. While doing these things in the name of continuity, he had somehow managed to hint at a future bright with possibilities of reform. It remained to be seen whether he was not, perhaps, enjoying too much success too soon.
“For the moment all America praises the new President,” a British correspondent wrote. “But trouble is bound to come.”
CHAPTER 2
The Most Damnable Outrage
Thousand’s iv men who wudden’t have voted f’r him undher anny circumstances has declared that undher no circumstances wud they vote f’r him now.
ON 16 OCTOBER 1901, the President heard that Booker T. Washington was back in town, and invited him to dinner that night. Roosevelt had a momentary qualm about being the first President ever to entertain a black man in the White House. His hesitancy made him ashamed of himself, and all the more determined to break more than a century of precedent. He received Washington at 7:30 P.M. and introduced him to Edith. The only other non-family guest was Philip B. Stewart, a friend from Colorado.
Dinner proceeded behind closed doors, under the disapproving gaze of a Negro butler. Southern politics was the main topic of conversation. Washington’s aloofness precluded friendly chat, as did Edith Roosevelt’s sweet uninterest in anyone—black or white—who was not, as she put it, “de nôtre monde.”
The President felt entirely